On my way to the bedroom
It is an article of faith on the Rust that, despite my position as boxing correspondent, I am never under an obligation to report on any particular boxing bill or indeed address any issue of the moment relating to the sport.
Indeed, if I feel like it, I can either ‘withhold my fire’ in this respect for months at a time and/or blog upon anything else that takes my fancy instead.
It is in that context that today I report it was only about lunchtime yesterday that I deliberately decided to go into my cable TV box and seek out the “Live Events” page and pay £21 or thereabouts for the right to watch the Eddie Hearn Matchroom (no spectators) promotion headlined by the heavyweight bout between world title contender Dillian Whyte and Russia’s Alexander Povetkin.
Given that my normal bedtime is circa 8.00pm, this was always going to be a bit of an ordeal for your author.
As it happened I hadn’t endured a particularly busy or stressful day – just the usual domestic chores plus a visit to my local Vodafone shop during which I discovered that my incident of being caught in a monsoon-like downpour, which had caused an issue with my smartphone, was terminal for the device as regards working (water always does this apparently, unless one has a waterproof cover for it, which of course I didn’t – I wasn’t aware that such an item even existed).
And so it came to pass that I spent the evening fighting a gradually losing battle to remain awake.
Three and a half hours of boxing does tend to pall somewhat when in reality one wishes only to watch the top of the bill contest.
Inevitably I found myself nodding off from time to time and ultimately only saw the main attraction because Her Indoors nudged me into life having been alerted to my plight by my ‘Concorde taking off decibel’ snoring.
What follows below is probably one of the stranger reports upon a boxing bout that some Rusters will ever read.
After four rounds of average-fare big boys’ activity in the ring, during which long-term world title contender Whyte gradually gained enough ascendancy to send his opponent for a close look at the canvas on three occasions in advance of what seemed to be an inevitable conclusion within the next round or two, the ‘money shot’ occurred out of the blue.
Half a minute or so into round five, the embattled Povetkin suddenly unleashed a peach of a hook that rendered Whyte completely senseless even before he hit the floor in an eighteen stone pile of rubble against the nearest lower rope.
Cue me immediately turning the television off and waddling down the corridor to my bedroom where (I suspect) I was unconscious even before – upon a vast estate somewhere in Essex – Whyte was scraped off the floor and place upon a stool to recover from his plight.